Chpt4

Trying to read "Before the Law" allegorically, even if you want to, is no easy matter. Instead of simplistic concrete images, we have large abstractions like the law, leaving the reader left searching for what it actually represents. We have a man from the country—who does he represent? What's the doorkeeper's business? So, although we have a parable, it's not easy to decipher. Is Kafka satirizing this form, or demonstrating how problematic interpretation can be? You have this image of a doorkeeper, of a gate, of many gates and many doorkeepers, each one even more powerful than the last. What do these doorkeeper's represent in Kafka's parable? This man from the country has no such aid, it seems, or is it that he just doesn't ask for any? The doorkeepers may represent obstacles to justice or maybe they are injustice personified. They are the essence of unfairness. They are guarding the law, keeping people out, after all. If you could get past these doorkeepers you'd be getting past injustice.
In "Before the Law" we don't know if we're dealing with divine law or human law, but since there's no mention of anything divine, it's probably okay to assume we're dealing with human law. But in each case, isn't the law signifying the same thing? It is all law. What is law? Isn't it our attempt to impose rationality and order upon chaos? Law is the basis of civilization, what separates us from our primitive natures, which is an effort to impose our power of reason upon all of our other impulses, and to give meaning to our actions by imposing consequences on them. But in "Before the Law" the man from the country cannot even be "admitted." He's stuck outside. He can't get in. What does this imply, that the Law is so inaccessible to him?
Kaiti g.

Examining a text from 1923

In Chapter three, the text explains how reading is an open ended process, the myriad of ways in which a book is interpreted is dependent on the social context in which it was written. When coming upon a book titled, "Is Sex Really Necessary?" written in 1923, I was dumbfounded at the way in which women were viewed as the weaker sex in this era. Many times I would stop after reading a page and just imagine the kind of outrage such a work would bring if it was reprinted in todays modern society.
In one particular section of the book, the author explains what a married couple should do if they decide to part ways. The author explains that due to the stress and disorganization the husband would go through having dirty laundry pile up and no wife to look after such chores, the mans life would be disrupted and disorderly. He comes to the conclusion that the married couple should in fact not seperate due to this fact alone.
Later in the text there is a chapter titled, "How Children Should Talk to their Parents About Sex". This part tells the assumed adult child how to go about carefully discussing sexual intercourse with their parents, and suggestions how to make the conversation go smoothly. It was after reading this that I now fully realized how different life was in the 1920's. Examining a work like this now, puts into perspective how much our society has evolved. When it was published in 1923, the author wrote this book as a sort of self-help for the common male dealing with the trials and tribulations of the female counterpart.
In Chapter Five the book goes on to explain several of the inevitable conundrums the male will face when deciding whether or not to marry his beloved lady. My personal favorite is the instance of the males indeciveness when not knowing if his beautiful girlfriend will stay that way throughout her life. The author says the best way to figure out if her beauty is withstanding is to size up her mother as soon as possible. If her mother is plump and rotund, then by god the author advises, do not marry this one!
This text is absurd, when analyzed in present day, after decades of Women's Rights groups have been established along with an entire Feminist Movement. Instead of reading a history book about the early part of the 1920's, I suggest finding a work like this one so your idea of womens rights and the countries mindset at the time can be fully understood.